The Thomas James off-topic topic thread

[Chris Millar]

:rolleyes:

[John Brawley]

:rolleyes:

 

 

It's no fun if he isn't wading into a thread that is actually generating useful discussion and debate !

 

jb

[Chris Millar]

So um, yeh - how bout dem protron thrusters on the Discovery - I was thinking maybe if they ran at a higher frame rate 2001 would have been a better film huh

[K Borowski]

Chris, don't forget 70mm 5-perf., the ONLY film format that will hold up at 4K, or was it 2. . . :D

[Thomas James]

I wasn't talking about proton or anti-matter thrusters such as featured on Star Trek and which is a technology decades into the future. Since the movie "2001" was based on a true story namely the United States Air Force Orion Project which spent 10 million dollars planning to send a team of astronauts to Saturn by the 1970's, one can assume that any propulsion technologies under consideration would have to be technologies already developed although of course they could be and they would have to be radical. However I can see the enormous stigma that Kubrick would have faced if he followed Arthur C. Clarkes advice and allowed the filming of Discovery propelled by atomic bomb explosions as such naked glorification of nuclear power would have earned him the title of "Dr. Strangelove" the lover of atomic bombs.

 

And I never said that a higher framerate would have benefited Kubricks Cinematography style. On the otherhand Kubrick is well known for his slow panning and long takes which is a welcome relief in this day and age of attention deficit disorder with its fast action and split second imagery. However there are times when the film could have also showcased Doug Trumbels Cinematography style which featured entering the stargate and traveling through the universe at faster than light speeds.

[Chris Millar]

I wasn't talking about proton thrusters either...

 

'ProTRON' - its the way of the future ;)

 

Now, I hope this isn't all taken as offense - Its just that you have a habit of steering conversations away into your own interests - now here in this thread you can discuss all this stuff as you like and hopefully find like minded people who want to join in, relatively on 'your terms' ... after all, the thread is specifically for you.

 

Lets try to keep it on topic. :lol:

[Ruairi Robinson]

Since the movie "2001" was based on a true story

 

I hate to break it to you man, but 2001 a space Odyssey is actually NOT based on a true story. It is, believe it or not, a work of fiction.

 

For one thing, they set it in the future.

 

R.

[Adrian Sierkowski]

You mean Pan Am isn't flying people to a girant spinning wheel pasta? Damn!

 

Sorry, couldn't resist it.

[Rob Vogt]

Why isn't this in the off-topic section???

[Chris Millar]

Why isn't this in the off-topic section???

 

Well, to be fair the usual topics are somewhat film related - really up to Thomas to answer your question though huh.

[Thomas James]

Okay for all of you naysayers who say that it couldn't have been done which is a manned mission to Saturn by 1970. Look at the size of the Saturn V rocket and compare that with the Discovery rocket featured in 2001. Both of these devices are exactly the same size and cost the same amount of money to build and weigh exactly the same which is 3000 tons. Both rockets are exactly the same length. However one rocket uses chemical propulsion and has to discard most of its stages which leaves a very tiny 50 ton payload. The Discovery rocket on the otherhand is nuclear powered so most of the rocket is lifted into space which means a 1500 ton payload. The Discovery rocket only seems like a bigger more expensive rocket because it has a much bigger crew quarters whereas the Saturn V rocket has tiny crew quarters. But both rockets are exactly the same size.

 

Technologically it requires less technology and money to build a rocket that can go to Jupiter or Saturn.

This is because with nuclear propulsion which is a million times more powerfull than chemical propulsion weight is no longer a consideration. A rocket that goes to Saturn uses conventional steel but a chemical rocket that can only go to the moon must use expensive exotic alloys.

 

The reason why humans never went to Saturn in 1970 was not because of technological limitations nor was it economic considerations because it could have been done affordably. Nor was it a lack of belief because the United States Air Force which sponsored the proposed manned Saturn mission became a firm believer in atomic energy after witnessing atomic explosions.

The reason why humans never went to Saturn was political in nature. To go to Saturn would have violated our nuclear test ban treaties.

[Adrian Sierkowski]

Not to geek too much here, but man, I wish there was still a major space race... as much as I love what NASA does now... it just isn't nearly as "cool" as all my sci-fi inspired fantasies when I was a kid watching TNG. (ok, So i Still watch TNG....)

[Frank Barrera]

i'd like to nominate this as the weirdest thread of the year.

[Chris Millar]

Look at the size of the Saturn V rocket and compare that with the Discovery rocket featured in 2001. Both of these devices are exactly the same size and cost the same amount of money to build and weigh exactly the same which is 3000 tons.

 

Was the Discovery 3000 short tonnes or long tonnes ? Approaching the speed of light things contract right so long tonnes to compensate ?

 

Makes sense.

[Daniel Sheehy]

...This is because with nuclear propulsion which is a million times more powerfull than chemical propulsion...

The 'million times more powerful' refers to energy density of the fuels, not the resultant propellant efficiency. That is much lower.

 

The reason why humans never went to Saturn in 1970 was not because of technological limitations nor was it economic considerations because it could have been done affordably. Nor was it a lack of belief because the United States Air Force which sponsored the proposed manned Saturn mission became a firm believer in atomic energy after witnessing atomic explosions.

The reason why humans never went to Saturn was political in nature. To go to Saturn would have violated our nuclear test ban treaties....

And the fact that the technology wasn't ready for flight testing by the time the program was cancelled in 1972 had nothing to do with it? ;)

 

For anyone who is actually interested, here's NASA's final report into the Rover Nuclear Rocket Engine Program. http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntr..._1992005899.pdf

[Brian Drysdale]

Part of the problem could be getting the 3000 tons into space for the Saturn mission in the first place in 1970. There are lots of studies that don't go anywhere, many of which would make more sense than this particular project. Given the state of the world economy during the 1970s there would need to be a really pressing need to go to Saturn. Although perhaps it would better if the human race did spend money on huge space projects like this than weapons races, it doesn't seem to be in its nature when things closer to home aren't being paid for.

 

Quite a few films are based on true stories or at least true to some extent. Elements of the Indiana Jones stories with the Nazis and "The Hunt for Red October" is based on a real event with a Soviet surface ship in the Baltic.

 

The main thrust of 2001 was encountering an intelligence greater than that of humans and the beacons that this intelligence left as markers.

[K Borowski]

Was the Discovery 3000 short tonnes or long tonnes ? Approaching the speed of light things contract right so long tonnes to compensate ?

 

Makes sense.

 

SH!7! You beat me to it, Chris!

 

Lol. Don't leave out metric tonnes either.

 

 

As someone on the "up-and-up" with NASA, it is still very much a customary unit club. My relative who works there was talking about how NASA was "all metric" now, and, as proof, showed me a 2.54 meter (100 inch/8'4") diameter, circular hatch as proof. Umm hmm.

 

My understanding is that the Southern centers are the most adamantly customary; they do all the equations in English then convert to metric at the end. PSI and pounds, pounds thrust, are all stubbornly entrenched in NASA engineers' heads.

 

 

What that has to do with anything Thomas has said, though, is unknown. He likes to pretend to be a scientist, but is apparantly very firmly entrenched in science fiction, in both the movie and real worlds. 48FPS is a long way off; so is nuclear propulsion. Hell, the only tests done on nuclear were the Kiwi experiments back in the early 1960s. The U.S. hasn't built a nuclear power plant since the 1970s, nor has it been able to get even a radio-isotope generator, like what was used to power the Saturn probes, off the ground since then without heavy protests.

 

Yes, nuclear is a good propulsion technology, but only a space race between maybe the U.S. and China can actually trigger U.S. endeavour to actually get back into real space, IMHO.

 

Adrian, watch "2001" if you want to see an example of what space travel is really like. My relative at NASA is into all Star Trek series, of course, but he puts "2001" on a special pedestal. Hell, not even "2010" had the same degree of realism, and it was supposed to be a sequel! They even put sound in space in 2010, which I would've held off on, out of respect to Kubrick, were I doing it.

 

IDK, though, maybe in a couple of months from now, there *will* be sound in space ;-)

Edited December 9, 2009 by Karl Borowski

[John Holland]

Thomas James says he is a camera operator , he doesnt have any sense of humour !! would hate to be on a long shoot with him !!!

[Adrian Sierkowski]

C'mon now Karl, you should know I have multiple 2001 DVDs

I want ANY SPACE TRAVEL! Star Trek/wars based, BSG, don't care; I just wish we were doing more of that cool stuff. but that's neither here nor there.

[Thomas James]

Anyway the BBC produced a documentary called "To Mars by A-Bomb" which can be watched at

http://www.Veoh.com/browse/videos/category...6624585JCpsqsM#

Edited December 9, 2009 by Thomas James

[K Borowski]

Journalistic allusions aside, a nuclear reactor isn't an "a-bomb" by any means. . .

[Thomas James]

However a disposable nuclear reactor is in fact an atomic bomb. You blow it up and the rocket rides the wave. Same principle as a lighting firecracker under a tin can.

You need to watch the entire 1 hour BBC movie but to do that you need to download the free Veoh player. Of course a rocket engine can use a conventional nuclear reactor to heat up the expelled propellent but only atomic bombs can get these rockets off the ground.

[Daniel Sheehy]

...However a disposable nuclear reactor is in fact an atomic bomb...

Ahh no.

A disposable nuclear reactor is just that, a nuclear reactor designed to harness a contained nuclear reaction in a controlled manner, for a single time event.

A nuclear bomb is a nuclear device designed to trigger a single uncontained, uncontrolled nuclear reaction.

 

...Dr Strangelove anyone? :D

[Chris Millar]

A nuclear bomb is a nuclear device designed to trigger a single uncontained, uncontrolled nuclear reaction.

 

They were certainly 'uncontrolled' to begin with - and it depends on the scale of the control that we are talking about anyway - but there have been plenty of pretty smart folk working on them since Japan ...

 

[Daniel Sheehy]

Uncontrolled as in once the bang starts, it can't be stopped. :)

 

And the reactor line should have read: "A disposable nuclear reactor is just that, a nuclear reactor designed to harness a contained nuclear reaction in a controlled manner, not intended for multiple or re-use."

Edited December 10, 2009 by Daniel Sheehy